Some other issues re: solely the vaccine conversation:
Many of our vax'd patients think they got vax'd, it's all good, never to worry. But not so. We know that there's about an 8 month limit on the antibodies once you've been vax'd. After that, the vax isn't going to do you much good, if any. Nobody presents this as something that, as it stands now, you'll have to keep doing over and over periodically. That's something to consider.
They also think you can't get covid if vax'd. Also not so. Your chances of needing hospitalization and/or dying from it are profoundly reduced, but you can still get it. Although you may not, so there's no hard and fast rule there. Wife and I just got through with covid even though we were still (barely) within the 8 month window. There's no way for us to know if we still had antibodies, and how much, the PCR tests we took didn't distinguish between IgN and IgA. All we know is we had much milder cases compared to many we know who did not vax, and we were still within the 8 month window.
At any rate, now we fall into the category of people with naturally produced antibodies, which are a bit stronger and last longer (about 10ish months, last I heard) than the vaccine would provide. So before covid we would've either soon been due for some sort of booster or been unprotected. Now there's no point in us thinking about this again for another 10 months. In the meantime, people can get lost who tell me to re-vax or I suck. This includes the commander in chief who is losing patience with me, I reckon. The larger point is there's been no consideration for people who've had covid when directing the ire of the people in charge that I've seen. Health Departments work so hard to keep track of covid cases....well, that means they have a list of people who need to stop being bothering about vaxing, at least for a while. Those numbers need to be counted when considering "making our population safe," but they're not. They erroneously use total numbers, which are worthless when considering the intent. People who had covid need to be in the "marked safe from political scorn" category, at least for a while. And people who are vax'd do not get to stay in that category indefinitely. Our bodies don't work that way, and if they yell about "ignoring the science" I'm inclined to tell them to mix the science with some philosophy and statistics and get back to me.
There's also that tiny % of the population that shouldn't get vaccinated. It's a great idea to check with one's doctor, somebody who either knows one's medical history or at least can be told it. I see the point of ignoring this, this is such a small group of people that it's probably not worth fooling with, and god knows if our patients are any indication, you start saying stuff like this and suddenly everybody thinks they're in that special category of people who shouldn't be vax'd. Nevertheless, it's a thing. We have one patient whom Doc told her family do not vaccinate her. They got freaked out by the messaging and did it anyway, and this young woman had a terrible reaction. Fortunately they were persuaded after that not to do the second shot.
And of course, none of this even touches the non-medical aspects of things. To wit, I'm pro-vax but anti-mandate. I don't want the government or (most) employers or anyone else telling people what they will and won't inject. Because, quite simply, this is not merely a medical issue, despite the fact its repeatedly presented as one. And there's a MAJOR problem with the messaging here. Either the government wants us to think vaccines work or they don't. Supposedly they do, so it's ridiculous for all the vaccinated people to go around demanding the unvax'd join their camp. If the vaccines work, then you're protected. Shut up and let other people do what they want to do. At this point virtually everyone who wants to be vaccinated has been. I wanted to, and I was. It's not my place to make that decision for others, and I can't say "It's not about protecting you, it's about protecting others" because that's ridiculous if the vaccines work. I vax'd....I'm protected whether anybody else vax'd or not. If somebody else couldn't be bothered to get a free vaccine, or didn't want it, it's not my job to make them put on a life jacket, and they're no danger to me if the vaccines work.
And finally, "they" talk like this is going to be over with at some point if we just do the "right things." This is misleading and, I think, probably intentionally so. The sad reality is this thing is here. It's mutating at a heretofore unseen rate. It's also showing early signs of being the "smartest" virus we've encountered in its adaptability and ability to find ways to mutate to infect previously immune systems. At best, it's like the flu....it's here, it's in the population, it's always changing with a new strain annually, you have to deal with this every year, you can take this year's flu vaccine or not, and know that some years "they" get it pretty spot on, and other years the flu vaccine is much less effective. At worst--and I hope this is not the case but it's not out of the question--this thing mutates faster and more efficiently than we have any hope of keeping on top of with new vaccines, and this is just a thing that we all live with in our society now. The messaging has been "Do what we say and we'll get you through this and it will all be over if you bend the knee." I've been told nothing and seen nothing to make me think this is the case. This is not going away, and shame on politicians for misleading with their stupidity, or intentionally lying for their gain.
